Anna / Mangano / Loren / Gold of Naples

A Silvana Mangano double feature, with Sophia Loren too !

1949's BITTER RICE was the successful Italian film which introduced Silvana Mangano to international audiences. I have not seen it yet (but will be shortly) - producers Dino De Laurentiis and Carlo Ponti who combined to produce all those Italian films of the 50s, repeated its success, along with co-stars Raf Vallone and Vittorio Gassman, with Silvana as ANNA in 1951, a torrid melodrama reuniting its 3 young stars (who would all have great international careers). As per my other posts on Silvana she was never an ambitious actress (like Loren or Lollo) but as Mrs De Laurentiis she headlined her husband's films. Also on the fast track then was the next Italian sensation, Sophia Loren, who had Carlo Ponti to guide her career. It is amusing seeing Sophia here in the more or less silent bit part as one of the nightclub girls (with Gassman, below left); 3 years later by 1954 Sophia (barely 20) was headlining those terrific movies I love like WOMAN OF THE RIVER and TOO BAD SHE'S BAD (where is SCANDAL IN SORRENTO ?) after working her way up in films like the amusing Sordi vehicle TWO NIGHTS WITH CLEOPATRA, by which time Gina Lollobrigida was also another major Italian star, heading for international movies.



Back to ANNA - this may well be my discovery of the year. Silvana is luminous as the indispensible hospital nursing nun (but she has not taken her final vows yet....) beloved by her patients and the surgeon she assists at operations, but what is her secret?
One night we find out as wounded Raf Vallone is brought in, Sister Anna rushes to the opera to get the head surgeon who is needed to operate and we see in flasback, that she was a nightclub singer and was going to marry country boy Raf, but her jealous lover Vittorio cannot let her go .... after tragedy she finds peace as a nun. Silvana gets to sing here, two delightful numbers which were released on disk and it seems they are still available (I shall have to investigate...). This is an engrossing drama that still works now - it is in fact an ideal "woman's picture" much better than any today. The three young stars in their youthful prime command the screen, Silvana framed by that nun's habit looks sensational - that face and profile, with that long nose and expressive eyes. The drama continues as Raf comes out of surgery, Sister Anna tries to evade his attention but can the lovers get back together or will her life at the hospital, as an emergency train crash victims arrive, prove too strong? Terrific stuff then. Alberto Lattuada directs - he also helmed Silvana's THE TEMPEST which I liked a lot back in 1958, the year Silvana did Clement's THE SEA WALL (THIS ANGRY AGE) with Tony Perkins (see labels for more on these), 1960 saw Martin Ritt's downbeat FIVE BRANDED WOMEN - all Laurentiis productions as was ULYSSES in '53 with Silvana as Penelope and Circe, 1954's MAMBO where Silvana also sings and dances up a storm in another torrid melodrama by Ponti-De Laurentiis but releases by Paramount, with Gassman and wife Shelley Winters; in this one though its Silvana whom Shelley has a yen for! ANNA though is a great discovery with great Lux film production values. I loved it.

After some 60s films like BARABBAS and the amusing IL DISCO VOLANTE (see post below) Silvana mainly worked for directors like Pasolini (OEDIPE RE, TEOREMA) and Visconti (DEATH IN VENICE, LUDWIG, CONVERSATION PIECE) in the 70s, she had more or less retired from cinema as Vitti and Cardinale took centre stage; a heavy smoker she died in 1989, aged 59; one of her final appearances being in De Laurentiis's DUNE.

Finally one can see GOLD OF NAPLES (L'ORO DE NAPOLI) De Sica's 1954 portmanteau collection - which he followed in the 60s with his segment in BOCCACCIO 70 and the Loren-Mastroianni hit YESTERDAY TODAY & TOMORROW. GOLD OF NAPLES though showcases Naples in all its vibrancy and is where director De Sica spent his first years, this is a collection of Napolitean episodes : a clown (Toto) exploited by a gangster, he is even paid to say prayers at the grave of the gangster's wife, its richly comic when the worm turns; an unfaithful pizza seller (Sophia) losing her emerald ring - and the young Loren is sensational walking through those Neapolitan streets; the funeral of a child; the gambler Count Prospero (Vittorio himself) defeated by a kid; the unexpected and unusual wedding of Teresa (Silvana), a prostitute, a touching tale, Mangano has a long climactic close-up. With Eduardo De Fillipo and scripted by De Sica regular, Cesare Zavattini. Bliss to finally catch up with now. Like Rossellini's VOYAGE TO ITALY it captures that early 50s Italian scene perfectly. and now for BITTER RICE .... see Italian label for more on all these; Vittorio's return to Naples in the first segment of YESTERDAY TODAY & TOMORROW being particularly choice, (and whose locations seem the same as the Toto episode here in GOLD OF NAPLES), also his Loren segment of BOCCACCIO 7O, and those other Italian portmanteau 60s films like LE BAMBOLE and LE FATE, with Vitti and Lollobrigida..

5 BRANDED WOMEN: Mangano, Moreau, Vera Miles, Barbara Bel Geddes, Carla Gravina; TEMPEST - Agnes Moorehead ideal as Mangano's mother.

My Voyage to Italy - Martin Scorsese

The perfect documentary for me is Martin Scorsese's MY VOYAGE TO ITALY, I missed this whenever it played on television - did it ever play here in the UK? - but at least the dvd is now avalable. Scorsese of course as an Italian-American is the ideal guide through Italian cinema, he grew up watching these films and they have inluenced his work. It is a given that he would have loved Fellini's I VITELLONI (which I raved about here a while back), it is a major influence on his MEAN STREETS.

This four hour documentary charts the landmark films and directors of the post-war era, including Vittorio de Sica, Luchino Visconti, Federico Fellini, Roberto Rosselini and Michelangelo Antonioni, good to see the usually neglected Rossellini given his due here. Given Marty's wealth of knowledge and infectious passion, just watching this DVD is like attending the best film class. He knows what he’s talking about and gives precise, eloquent descriptions of each movie, using his years of experience in front of a screen as well as behind the camera. Most of all this is 246 minutes of one of the great US directors imparting his passion about some of the most important films of the 20th century. It makes one want to go back to the movies and experience them all over again, particularly Visconti's great SENSO, De Sica's UMBERTO D, and those Fellini and Antonioni masterworks. I VITELLONI for instance remains a timeless pleasure and makes me want to see those other early Fellini films.



If you care about the medium, then it is an essential purchase. Scorsese introduces various segments and through judicious use of clips and an informed, eloquent voiceover takes us on a journey of the following films:

• Paisà (1946))
• Rome, Open City (1945)
• Stromboli (1950)
• Europa ’51 (1952)
• Shoeshine (1946)
• Bicycle Thieves (1948)
• Umberto D (1952)
• The Gold of Naples (1954)
• Ossessione (1943)
• La Terra trema (1950)
• Senso (1954)
• I Vitelloni (1953)
• La Dolce Vita (1960)
• Voyage to Italy (1954)
• L’avventura (1960)
• L’eclisse (1962)
• 8½ (1963)

His focus of course is on classic Italian cinema, but a broader view would encompass the sword-and-sandal peplum films popular in the late 50s/early 60s (like GIANT OF MARATHON, Leone's rather good THE COLOSSUS OF RHODES, THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII and the Steve Reeves spectaculars, APHRODITE, MESSALINA (see Belinda Lee label), and the giallo thrillers by the likes of Mario Bava and Dario Argento (Jean Sorel label), as well as the popular Loren-Mastroianni films and the delicious comedy films of Monica Vitti, Alberto Sordi et al (BOCCACCIO 70, LE BAMBOLE, LE FATE etc); and those films from the works of Alberto Moravia (TIME OF INDIFFERENCE (Claudia Cardinale label), TWO WOMEN), Georgio Bassani (THE GARDEN OF THE FINZI CONTINI'S) and those intriguing novels by Natalia Ginzburg (DEAR MICHAEL (CARO MICHELE), FAMIGLIA etc). Other strands of Italian cinema I liked are those Lina Wertmuller films like SEVEN BEAUTIES, the Taviani's PADRE PADRONE and new comedies like LOOSE CANNONS (review at Italian label), and the lesser known films by Alberto Lattuada (THE TEMPEST, DOLCI IGNANNI), Mauro Bolognini (GRAN BOLLITO, METELLO), Monicelli etc; Visconti's 1952 BELLISSIMA and 1965 operatic melodrama SANDRA (VAGHE STELLE D'ORSA) being my recent re-dioscoveries. I will have to comment separately on the polarising works of Bertolucci and Pasolini!

I have written about these in more detail at Italian, De Sica, Antonioni, Fellini labels ....plus at labels for Loren, Vitti, Valli, Cardinale, Magnani, Mangano, Mastroianni. We sure love those Italians!

Boccaccio 70

BOCCACCIO 70. That other great Italian compendium, produced by Carlo Ponti in 1962 – which was sold at the time on the starpower of the 3 actresses and directors: Anita Ekberg in the Fellini sketch (as the giant billboard advertisement which comes to life, stalking Peppino De Phillipo; Romy Schneider is a delightful tease in the lush Visconti episode making her cheating husband Thomas Milian pay for her favours, Romy dressed (and undressed) in Chanel stakes her claim to being a prestige actress here (as in Welles’ THE TRIAL, same year) and Sophia Loren in the amusing De Sica segment as the weekly prize in a fairground raffle - I had forgotten how hilariously funny this tale is as Vittorio piles on the local colour as the locals go gaga for Sophia, then the bull spies her red blouse so it has to come off, as the local hunk comes to her rescue, then the weedy cleric wins the raffle ticket! It is always amusing seeing Sophia acting as one of the common people and De Sica ramps up the laughs, just like that Naples segment in YESTERDAY TODAY & TOMORROW.
The 3 ladies deliver what is expected of them, but there was a fourth segment, by Mario Monicelli, which was cut at the time but is now restored in the dvd release. This is an amusing little tale too of a young newly-married couple wanting to find time to be alone together (like that crowded scene at the swimming pool) but continually being thwarted in that new Italian economic boom of the early 60s. Finally, they they get their own apartment but he has work nights and comes home to go to bed as she heads off to work on the bus. The couple are the attractive Marisa Solinas and Germano Gilioli and it still looks marvellously fresh and amusing. But why is it ’70 if it was made in ’62?

Italian peplums 1: spoofs and thrills

TWO NIGHTS WITH CLEOPATRA - Sort of an Italian CARRY ON CLEO? This Alberto Sordi comedy seems to be a spoof of the sword-and-sandal genre churned out in Italy during the ‘50s and early ‘60s. This one is only of note now because it features the 19 year old Sophia Loren in the dual role of Cleopatra and a slave girl who looks like her. Cleo needs to escape for a night or two and the slave girl Niscia has to impersonate her. Cleo though is in the habit of sleeping with her guards who are then killed the next morning – and Sordi is the latest guard. Alberto though is one of those annoying comedians (like Benny Hill or Frankie Howard or Norman Wisdom or Jerry Lewis – I dare say every country has their own) whom one either likes or dislikes. I am afraid it is the latter for me, but Sophia looks like she is going places here and has that swim in the pool … direction is credited to one Mario Mattoli. Very average but then Italian comedy does not always translate well abroad. It is of course a Ponti-De Laurentiis production.
NERO’S LOST WEEKEND or MY SON NERO – This 1956 one features Sordi again as Nero on holiday at his seaside villa. The cast though is the thing here: Vittorio De Sica as Seneca (one of his take the money and run jobs to finance his gambling no doubt), the pre-Vadim Brigitte Bardot lovely as ever as Poppea – AND Gloria Swanson as Nero’s fearsome mother Agrippina. She makes a fantastic entrance parting the curtains of her carriage as she is all in red with a red veil – quite a contrast to Norma Desmond. She enters into the spirit of all, so it is amusing nonsense. My copy is in Italian though – but with that cast one hardly needs English!. Steno is credited as director but Mario Bava and Lucio Fulci are also involved and it has the usual Titanus production values. Peter Ustinov’s Nero though was a lot funnier in QUO VADIS!



MESSALINA IMPERIAL VENUS – a 1960 routine Italian sword-and-sandal saga I had been meaning to see as it features a fascinating starlet Belinda Lee, who was one of the British Rank Organisation girls and who featured in British moves in the ‘50s before moving to Europe and the popular peplum movies of the era, before being killed in a car accident in 1961 while still in her 20s. Maybe she would have had a better career … Here she is the evil Messalina, wife of Claudius (a minor character here) as she plots to take control using lovers and having people assassinated. There are also some Christians of course, but Messalina the ex-vestal virgin gets her comeuppance eventually. It is a good German issue actually with German and English subtitles and interesting enough, though without a strong male lead. Directed by one Vittorio Cottafavi.

JOSEPH AND HIS BRETHERN – Another interesting biblical, released in 1962 but must have been filmed about 1960 (as star Belinda Lee died in 1961), directed by veteran Irvin Rapper (who lived to be 101!). It has decent production values, and a score by Mario Nascimbene, as it expands on the biblical story of Joseph sold into Egypt and his coat of many colours. Geoffrey Horne from BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI (and BONJOUR TRISTESSE and THE TEMPEST, both ’58) is Joseph, biblical veteran Finlay Currie his father and one of the brothers is Terence Hill as Benjamin. Robert Morley has a whale of a time hamming it up as the merchant Potiphar and Belinda Lee, looking sensational in a black wig, is Potiphar’s deceitful wife who puts the make on Joseph. It is all quite watchable as Rapper (a long way from NOW VOYAGER) makes it seem effortless.

and: not a sword-and-sandal but certainly an oddity I finally caught up with:



THE TROJAN WOMEN – Funny how one resists certain movies. Despite my admiration for those leading actresses I just never wanted to see this Michael Cacoyannis 1971 version of the Euripedes Greek tragedy, and despite having the dvd for over a year, I was in no hurry to see it. But as it is a week of exploring female roles I gave it a go, and it certainly lived up (or down) to my expectations. Perhaps Greek tragedies are now unfilmable (though Cacoyannis’ ELECTRA was an exception). Here he is showcasing Katharine Hepburn, Vanessa Redgrave, Genevieve Bujold and Irene Papas who all get their moments but they are Acting, Acting, Acting. It just gets tiresome and is in fact rarther risible as they are dressed in rags, scrabbling around in the dust in a barren desert landscape (rather like out-takes from THE LIFE OF BRIAN) – but these are Trojan noblewomen and Troy has just been captured, it would not be reduced to rubble just yet, so one queries the look of the film. Redgrave produces a weird animal-like shriek as she is told her son has to die, and it is fascinating to see the leonine Hepburn, as the queen Hecuba, at this stage of her career after her late ‘60s successes and before her frailties set in. Papas scores best though as the caged Helen, proud and defiant in her nakedness. Brian Blessed and Patrick Magee are the only males of note. It is certainly an interesting oddity, but hardly one to re-see.

Next lot: Steve Reeves THE GIANT OF MARATHON, THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII, Jeffrey Hunter GOLD FOR THE CAESARS, Anthony Quinn ATTILA, Kirk Douglas ULYSSES, Jeanne Crain NEFERTIRI PRINCESS OF THE NILE etc

Sophia and Marcello and Vittorio (again)

I have written quite a bit here about the magic created by Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni, particularly when directed by Vittorio De Sica. Vittorio was one of those great larger than life characters (as per my label on him covering his career as both actor and director).

I have been watching some of those early Lorens lately - from BEFORE she went into international and American films: TWO NIGHTS WITH CLEOPATRA (when she was 19 in '53), ATTILA, TOO BAD SHE'S BAD (left) - a delicious '54 comedy where she is conman Vittorio's chatterbox daughter and Marcello is the dim taxi-driver who gets involved with them, it is sheer joy), WOMAN OF THE RIVER - which I liked so much when I saw it as a kid (see labels for reviews), and now finally, the missing link has become available, the 1954 GOLD OF NAPLES - directed by De Sica with Silvana Mangano and Sophia, who was just rising to stardom here. I shall be looking forward to seeing that shortly, review to follow.



Sophia was still only 23 when so-starring with the likes of Alan Ladd (BOY ON A DOLPHIN), John Wayne (LEGEND OF THE LOST), etc. Her 10 American films from 1957-60 are mainly fluff but HOUSEBOAT with Grant, THE BLACK ORCHID and the Cukor western HELLER IN PINK TIGHTS all have their charms. She is more animated back in Italy, Naples to be precise, with Clark Gable in IT STARTED IN NAPLES [his second last film] with Vittorio in support - then in 1960 came the international hit of TWO WOMEN - Vittorio directs, Belmondo is in support and Loren at 25 plays the mother of a 14 year old daughter, gets the Academy Award (the first actress to do so in a foreign language) and goes on to those other interesting European films as well as headlining epics like FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE or OPERATION CROSSBOW. The De Sica ones are rather choice though: YESTERDAY TODAY AND TOMORROW in '64, I particularly like the Naples story where she is the endlessly pregnant wife of Marcello, being pregnant keeps her out of jail, until poor Marcello cannot perform any more. MARRIAGE ITALIAN STYLE in 1965 is terrific as well, from the great Italian play "Filumena". SUNFLOWER in 1970, set partly in Russia, though was a return to old-fashioned melodrama and just did not work at all and was very dated in that interesting period of cinema pushing new boundaries.



De Sica also popped up in other Loren vehicles such as THE MILLIONAIRESS as he continued acting in various movies like THE MONTE CARLO STORY (1957 with Dietrich), NERO'S LOST WEEKEND with Alberto Sordi, Brigitte Bardot and Gloria Swanson (more on this next week) and various movies like THE ADVENTURES OF MOLL FLANDERS and ANDY WARHOL'S DRACULA. Like that other larger than life director who also acted John Huston, Vittorio needed to work to fund his lavish gambling habit. His last big commercial success as director though was the 1971 THE GARDEN OF THE FINZI-CONTINI from the Giorgio Bassani novel. His last directing effort with Loren (and Richard Burton) THE VOYAGE in 1974 was also a return to old fashioned cinema and did not seem to be released for a long time, a dvd was finally issued a couple of years ago here in the UK.



Marcello's LA LOI in '59 has been a recent discovery of mine (as per review) and then of course he began his long Fellini assocation. He and Sophia had one last co-starring outing as part of Altman's not entirely successful PRET-A-PORTER (left) in '94. Vittorio died in 1974, and Marcello in 1996; Sophia now 76 and looking as sensational as ever will hopefully have a few more good roles, after the damp squib that was NINE. It is one of the great international careers, comparable to Taylor's.
Here's an interesting snippit: Back in 1961 when EL CID first opened in New York they wanted to have Heston as sole name above the title (this was after BEN HUR of course) but Loren's contract guaranteed equal billing, it went to court (I remember reading about in the papers) and the first ads had to be pulled to give her equal billing - which probably didn't endear her to Heston then!